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Petraeus: Iraqi Sunnis rejecting al-Qaida

(UPI) The top U.S. military commander in Iraq, Army Gen. David Petraeus, says the hotbed of Anbar province is improving as Sunni Muslims increasingly reject al-Qaida.

Petraeus took a CBS News crew for an aerial tour of the province west of Baghdad and to the regional capital of Fallujah, and said there had been significant cooperation with tribal leaders in rejecting the terror cells.

“If you look at the country as a whole, there is an unacceptable level of violence,” the general told the network. “But that level of violence, the number of ethno-sectarian deaths, you name it, the number of (Sunni-Shiite) incidents has been reduced dramatically.”

Sheik Saddoun al-Bou’issa, who has lost 30 members of his tribe to fighting, told CBS why he no longer supports al-Qaida’s anti-U.S. mission.

“We think they care about Islam, but they lie, they cut heads, they destroy Iraq — they don’t like Iraq to be safe,” he said.

Next week, Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker are scheduled to report to Congress on security and political progress.